Sheriff [No Sign-up]

The next morning, the stranger's mule was found tied to the rail, but the stranger himself was gone. And Sheriff Elias Boone drank his coffee on the porch like he had every morning for forty years, watching the sun rise over a town that was still his to protect.

Sheriff Boone got the news from old Mrs. Hendricks, who ran the telegraph office and whose hearing was so sharp she could eavesdrop on a whisper from two blocks away. "Elias," she said, clutching her shawl like a shield, "he's got a star. A real one. Says he's been sent by the governor to clean up this town."

"Enforce the law."

The stranger turned. His star caught the light—brass, not tin, and engraved with the state seal. "Your badge?" He smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes. "I don't see your name on it, old-timer. I see a town that's been sleeping. I'm here to wake it up."

The stranger's smile finally faded. His hand tightened on his revolver. "You giving me a speech, old man?" Sheriff

The sheriff looked at her for a long moment. Then he took down his hat from the peg by the door. His fingers, gnarled as oak roots, brushed the brim once, twice, a habit from decades past. "The governor's been dead six years, Mabel."

He saw a man who had already buried his wife. A man who had outlived two deputies and three horses and a son who took after his mother's reckless heart. A man who had nothing left to lose except the one thing he'd never learned to live without: the right to stand between trouble and the people who couldn't stand against it themselves. The next morning, the stranger's mule was found

Then the stranger laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. "You're bluffing."

"Well, nobody told this fella."

Clive the bartender let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since Tuesday began. "Sheriff," he said, "how did you know he was lying?"

"You got papers?" Boone asked.